Another nail in the PSVita’s coffin: Sony announces that PSVita game cartridges will stop being produced in less than a year!

UPDATE: Apparently Sony of Japan will still be producing physical games according to some news sources!

Due to various reasons, from expensive memory cards to the lack of AAA titles people wanted to play, the PSVita was somewhat of a failure in the West even though it enjoyed moderate success in Japan. Now, in order to drive another nail in the PSVita’s coffin, Sony has announced that physical games will soon become a thing of the past!

What exactly has Sony told us?

If you really want your new games on cartridge, you’ll have to look over at Nintendo’s offerings now!

In a very recent message to developers, Sony has stated that:

It will stop producing PSVita cartridges by the 31st of March, 2019 which is the end of 2018’s fiscal year.

While cartridges will stop being produced on 31/3/2019, it is also important to mention that Sony will no longer accept new product codes starting from the 29th of June of this year. This means that companies have to give Sony their product code for their new physical games till the above date.

Furthermore, Sony has stated that it will be accepting its last purchase orders on the 15th of February 2019 which means that in 9 months’ time, the last PSVita game cartridges will be ordered from Sony.

This recent development is probably news to nobody’s ears as Sony has already announced that it’ll stop providing free PS+ games for the PSVita/PS3 starting from March 2019. While this news is unfortunate, one must keep in mind that the PSVita has been on its way for the last couple of years so there has probably been little demand for new physical games especially outside of Japan.

What does this mean for me?

First of all, it must be noted that digital titles will still be accepted in the PSN store so this doesn’t mean that new games will stop being released for the console. This, however, does mean that new games will eventually only be available exclusively from the online PSN store.

Without any doubt, this will mostly impact people who still purchase new cartridge games for the PSVita for various reasons such as:

The imminent close-down of online game stores. This is already becoming a reality as the Wii’s online game store will be fully closed down on 31/1/2019 and purchased games may no longer be able for download.

Perhaps Sony wants to get rid of its remaining larger memory cards by forcing titles released in 2019+ to be released in digital form only!

Reluctance to buy a larger Vita memory card. For people who can’t use an SD2Vita adapter due to their console not being hacked, this will be a problem if they don’t want to spend the money on a larger Vita memory card.

Being afraid of losing their games if they’re banned from the online store due to hacking their console.

Wanting to sell them off after they’re done with them while still retaining their PSN account.

In order to mitigate the effects of this imminent discontinuation of cartridges, you can:

Backup your PSVita games to your computer via QCMA so that when the PSN store closes, you’ll still be able to get your digitally purchased games on your console.

Hack your console and buy an SD2Vita so that you’ll have a cheaper way to store any new digital games that you won’t be able to get on cartridge. Obviously, this has the repercussion of occupying your game card slot!

Conclusion

While for some people this is sad news, it’s unlikely to affect anybody too greatly so life will go on and new games will still be released albeit without a physical release.

Hopefully, with Sony’s wavering interest in the PSVita/PSTV, they’ll stop pushing new firmware updates so that the latest FW always has a hack after TheFlow releases his upcoming hack!

I'm a girl that's liked technology from day 1. Mostly interested in the PSVita/PSP scene but I've always modded my stuff when it's possible, that is :)Contact me via DM at @KawaiiAuroraA on Twitter if you have any questions/concerns about my articles or if you have any article requests.

The thing is that phones are universal: Android is Android, and given you buy from Android phone to Android phone you may even change every week while still having the same experience and content. The price isn’t really the issue here, it’s more the fact that a whole **console** is now dying. You can’t just buy another one and keep the same experience or content. If you choose to go from the Vita to the next portable console on the market, that’s basically a start from zero.

Ok, 1, phones are designed to be replaced every 2-3 years. Consoles aren’t. 2. When you update your phone, you simply go back into the App Store and redownload any app you want. No matter if you purchased the app in 2007 or 2017, the app will still work because there are no generations. 3. With portable consoles, and consoles in general, they die, and they die hard. Especially in this new digital era. If Sony or whoever decide to shut down their online store and kill a console, if you don’t have a large storage capacity card, you are losing the games you’ve paid for. Your PSVita games will only work on a PSVita. If the console dies, it’s done for, you can’t buy a newer model and just put your new games in it.

Meh. The Vita is to Sony what the Wii U was to Nintendo, something of a commercial failure. That doesn’t mean either are without merit or bereft of great games, just that they never really took off. At least Nintendo didn’t *** on theirs like Sony did though.

Correct! Both my Vitas and my Wii U are hacked. Wii U is the easiest way to get 1080p upscaled GameCube emulation out by HDMI I know of, granted it’s not as graphically pleasing as Dolphin but vWii hacking is pretty simple.

I recal this only affects western markets though. In VGchartz article they mention”Sony Interactive Entertainment’s American and European branches”. It’s a bit saddening but understandable. In my country PS Vita can’t really be bought anyway and neither can be games (mostly). Even though I don’t plan to support consoles after Vita I still plan to order some last exemplars I can get here and from Japan.

“Wanting to sell them off after they’re finished off with them while still retaining their PSN account.”

This isn’t important, and I’m sure most understood what you meant. However shouldn’t it be more like this? “Wanting to sell them off after they’ve finished playing, while still retaining their PSN account.”

Well yes, by process of elimination, that is the only “living” Sony console left so it is obviously next. 😛 However, that won’t be for a few more years. There would be no reason for them to kill it off until there is a PS5.

The downfall of the Vita was completely and utterly down to Sony and its handling of the console. They promised the world. AAA console games on mobile! And all that… When that never happened they just removed support and allowed third parties to make it a bit of an indie /niche jrpg machine. What Sony should have done is just apologised for some misdirection, maybe offered a small cash incentive (like 10-20 dollars) to those who brought it on the AAA promise. Then they should have doubled down and made some good *** portable games. The 3ds is a terrible console and if has had a great life with tons of success.. That is all down to software… The Vita WAS the best handheld… But hardware never beats software.

Call it emotional transfer but it is always painful to see a video game console you enjoyed being drowned in the mud. Well, the dreamcast wound still hurts…

The fact is that a pluridisciplinary company like Sony can afford a console to fail while Nintendo has no choice but to succeed, or move along as quick as possible. All in all, it is the toyphones trend that has permanently maimed the video game industry.

I am buying a new PS vita us model soon and see which fw it comes with am a bit confused 1000 or 2000 to buy since I had a 1000 since 2012. Till today I gave to my friend as it got a broken headphones jack.

tbh im not sure if there are any “NEW” Vita Modells still availiable for retail price. Most of them i find on ebay, amazon, shoob, etc are very over priced and give no indication of what Firmware they have. I got a used one with 3.60 fw from ebay for only 80 $ in the middle of 2017. but thats all for EU. not US.

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